Editor's Note: Owing to the Memorial Day weekend, we're posting early.
We've been asked several times to provide grounds for our forecast of the end of the SGG cult. Quite honestly, we think we've already done a pretty good job of that, particularly with our recent posts detailing SGG's 2015 Lenten attendance crisis.
However, we know many of you out there are just as eager as we Readers to hoot, whistle, and boo as the curtain rings down for the last time on that tacky, SW Ohio vaudeville act ineptly simulating 1950s Catholic life. Naturally, you want them gone and hope for some solid information.
We get it, and we're here to help.
Whereas we cannot say we know the precise date of SGG's shuttering -- we're pundits, not prophets! -- we can give you a fresh indication that the cult performance artists are about to exit the stage altogether to begin a lonely life of poverty and shame. Last Sunday, "One-Hand Dan," the comical host of this wearisome burlesque of traditional Catholicism, tipped us off in his "Bishop's (?) Corner" that the end is in sight:
Mother’s Day was interesting this year. I think I was a little disappointed as I was looking forward to a big attendance, mothers telling their grown up and away children that all they wanted was for them to come to Mass that day, as they used to do. But this has probably passed away with the corsage. High Mass attendance was thin ... Our High Mass refugees missed a beautiful Mass...What more revealing sign could you ask for than a boycott on Mother's Day along with an anemic collection tallying just a smidgeon over $3K? (That's not enough for all the expenses let alone an intimate summer escape to upscale Santa Fe with its Old-World charm and Southwest elegance at its finest.)
In the months to come, Wee Dan's little disappointment will grow into outsized, unrelieved horror.
When Mom and the kids opt out of attending Despairing Dannie's dolly-dress-up party on her big day, then you know closing down the show for good can't be too far off.
In order to make it look like the school has more students, they used somewhat of an optical illusion of sorts in the picture of 'Easter IV The Finding of the Holy Cross'. I thought it quite clever. They have the students lined up in 3 rows. Normally you would have them shoulder to shoulder, but in this picture there's a wide gap between each one so the line is longer & gives the appearance of a bigger group. This is the whole school & it's only 26 students! That's one classroom in a normal school. How many students did they have before 2009?
ReplyDeleteExcellent observation. We don't know the exact number, but maybe somebody out there does. It's important to remember that much of the old enrollment was made up of the principal's large family, who probably attended tuition free.
ReplyDeleteIt has the be remembered that the cult is something of a theological zombie. It is dead already. They just don't know it yet.
ReplyDeleteHow right you are. Tradistan's long night of the living dead is just about over.
ReplyDeleteWith only a couple dozen students they would need only 2 teachers really. One for the lower grades & another for the upper grades. Also the principal should be teaching which would mean that they needed just one other teacher. How many teachers do they have? Something IS wrong if the school is draining a lot of money from the collection. It also seems unfair if the principal's family is getting a free ride tuition wise. I can see a reduced rate but not completely free. I just can't imagine the rest of the parents putting up with this. Indeed this house of cards can't survive. Doesn't the principal see how untenable this whole thing is?
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, we think he's smart enough to see how untenable the situation is. That's why he's got to keep Dannie chained to SGG. If "One Hand" were to leave, he'd be chopped liver. Unever-Steven would cut him loose in a New -York minute.
DeleteWe have to give the principal credit for understanding just how depraved the Gerties are. He knows that a good number of them are emotionally tied to Dannie. So as long as Dannie stays, he's got a chance of survival.
Cjeckie knows this, too, so we think both of them have a pact to keep Deacon Dan in West Chester for as long as possible. As long as there are degenerate parents who'll send their precious children to the school, Cheesy and the principal have hope. (The degenerates are always with us, so it's not a bad gamble.)
We think we see the edges are fraying. Every day gets harder to sustain the dump. Dannie's less grateful to Checkie after Pistrina has exposed all the errors of his defense of one-handed priestly orders. Dannie understands the huge loss of income that his defense of the principal has cost him. All that remains is for a few more Gerties to fly the coop to precipitate a new crisis.
Dannie may find repentance and conversion much more attractive than losing it all just to keep the principal and Checkie in the clover. The people are losing their patience, so all we have to do is watch the agony.
In the class picture to which the one anonymous commenter referred,, I counted 25 students. Whatever the number is, it’s pitifully small for a school of that physical size (and number of faculty). The school building itself has at least a half dozen rooms – far too many for the number of children attending. (Most of the rooms serve as “warehouses” to store the ecclesiastical junk that Dannie has accumulated over the years.) As for the faculty, the only ones who get any kind of meaningful pay are the Lotarskis. (At last count, there were the principal, his wife, and at least one of his daughters teaching there.) The other “non-Lotarski” teachers (if there are any left) get little to no pay.
ReplyDeleteNormally, a school with a small “teacher-to-student ratio” would be a “positive” (and produce good academic results). But the school’s academic record is nothing short of PATHETIC. In the school’s dozen-plus years of existence, it has produced perhaps a half-dozen non-Lotarski “graduates” – with little or no academic distinctions to show for it. In fact, the school has mainly been a vehicle for the Lotarski children to get a FREE education (while their parents are being PAID to teach them) at the expense of SGG’s parishioners.
That begs the question, “”Why do they put up with this arrangement?” The answer, we suspect, is that the principal “has something” on Dannie (and probably Checkie too), and Dannie cannot afford to get rid of him for fear of “exposure.” (The principal has been known to say, more than once, “They can’t fire me; I know too much.”) So, the uneasy “détente” must continue for the time being, until one of the parties breaks under the strain – and we think that “party” is DANNIE.
Well put, Watcher. Dannie's going to burst like a festering boil. There's an ugly undertone of defiance among the Gerties that will provoke the eruption. We can't wait for the tears, recriminations, accusations, and mass exodus. It's going to be a hot mess.
DeleteI wrote my comment about 26 students & then went to read The Lay Pulpit in which he writes that he saw 25 students in the class picture in the April 26, 2015 Bulletin. I thought it funny or strange that we both wrote about the class size at the same time. Anyway, in the picture that I saw, on the left in the back row it looked like there was a student in back of another student & you can't see his face & I counted that one. Maybe that wasn't a student & so there's 25. I'll go & take a look-see at that class picture.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I'd call the parents degenerates. I work in a public school & see degenerates daily so I know what they look & act like. The culties are Catholic at least & I think they're more clueless than anything. They're probably desperate to keep their kids out of public school & this is their last hope. A real Catholic school, albeit NO, is too expensive or maybe they're just too lazy or too busy to explore other choices. Some people have no clue about academics - they wouldn't know good from bad.
In a friendly protest to your well-written and thoughtful comment, we would call these parents degenerate. You're right that they're probably clueless about academics and sound pedagogy, but they are aware of the principal's actions that led to the 2009 SGG School Scandal. Under no circumstances would normal parents allow their child to incur the slightest risk of the recurrence of such unconscionable adult behavior.
DeleteAs bad as the public schools are, very few would have allowed the principal to remain. Most of the large urban districts would have fired him or worse. In a large city, there would most likely have been an investigation by outside authorities.
In our estimation, the Dirty Gertie parents have surrendered their sacred duty to care for the weal of their offspring. It may be true that nothing too terribly untoward has happened since the 2009 catastrophe, but that is no excuse. Dannie and the so-called principal have forfeited any presumption of trust. Sending a child to SGG under the same men at the center of the 2009 scandal is nothing short of reckless.
Apart from the record of the 2009 SGG School Scandal is the issue of the academic preparation of the principal and the staff. Do they hold advanced degrees in education and their subject matter? What kind of inservice training do they undergo to assure that their teaching skills are fresh? Has the principal studied curriculum design, learning theory, fundamentals of supervision, legal aspects of education, business administration of schools, personnel administration, and finance? And what about the "teachers"? Have they all majored in elementary or secondary education at an accredited university from which they possess a degree? Are any attending graduate school?
If the answer to any of these questions is no, then even a simple-minded Gertie should understand that SGG is not equipped to educate his or her child for the competitive world of the 21st century.
I see your point & concede. We live in terrible times.
ReplyDeleteThese terrible times are made worse when parents, blinded by fanaticism, refuse to allow their God-given instincts to guide them.
DeleteWe have known many simple, disenfranchised, and uneducated people who have had to send their children to a public school. Never would these parents have stood for the behavior of the principal and the pastor of SGG. Inarticulate and powerless as they were, they would have spoken truth to power. They would have raised their voices to demand just punishment for the violation of their trust, and they would never have allowed their children to remain at any place under the direction of these men. Other decent members of the community, including the press, would have joined their cause.
Not to defend your child -- or anyone's child --in the face of injustice is depraved.
This comment is an additional reply to Anon, 5/23, 9:25 PM, the first one to make a comment on this post. Recently we received a detailed e-mail that answers the questions Anon 5/23 posed. We just made a few changes to assure that no identities could be revealed:
ReplyDelete"...{T]he swell in enrollment from last year to this year is due to the coming of one new family with 6 or 7 kids. Don't know the story behind it, and who knows what may become of them after the bloom is off the rose. I have a feeling this is another single parent situation or something, I could be wrong but I have strong doubts they pay any significant tuition.
Three Lotarski children are still in, with one set to fly away this year. (We wonder if he will ever be seen again at church or if he'll follow in the footsteps of older brothers).
Eight of the children belong to two families, let's call them the X family and the Y family. Now Mrs. X and Mrs. Y are sisters, and THEIR parents are diehard Gerties of 30 years or more. Mrs X and Mrs Y are the youngest in their family, the older ones attend Immaculate Conception and send their kids there. Not that it's much better but it seems to at least be a real school. Mrs X and Mrs Y are probably the only families that pay tuition. Two of the children are kindergarten age. Interestingly, there would be one more but he was pulled OUT two years ago to go to a real (public) school with a music program as the boy is very talented. So you see one of 'our young organists' isn't really 'ours' anymore.
Another set of siblings, second-generation Gerties, accounts for four or five more of the children. This is another typical traddie low income scenario, almost guaranteed they don't pay.
I think the most telling thing is the families who live nearby and do NOT send their children here. All on the higher end of income and intelligence scale."
All we Readers can do is recommend that these poor little innocents to the protection of St. Germaine Cousin. And we feel for the poor Gerties, too, hard-won dollars support this farce.
His Excellency Bp. Sanborn: "If all of these things happen, will you then rejoice? If there is no school and no church when all is said and done, will everyone be happy?" Well?
ReplyDeletehttp://sggscandal.com/bpsanborn/parishioneronleaving.htm
Is SGG a Catholic chapel or not? Does it have a right to operate? My judgment is no and no.
We concur with you, Anon. 5/28 6:04 PM. It is NOT Catholic and has no right to exist, except in a derelict and corrupt society such as ours, which tolerates every evil.
DeleteIf we may, we'd like to get on the record and reply to Big Don Sanborn's question. When the collapse comes, and SGG and its rotten little school are closed down, everyone we know will be more than happy: they'll be ecstatic. And we'll all be in the seventh heaven of delight when the MHT pesthouse is shuttered, too.
Do you see any hope for any of those clerics? (using the term loosely). Could they go to a real seminary & be made whole or are they generally hopeless? What can be done with them? Put on your prophet hat & make your best conclusion for after SGG falls.
ReplyDeleteThat's a tall order, Anon. 5/29 12:35 PM, but we'lll drag the old topper out of the mothballs and see if it works!
DeleteThe problem is, there isn't anything approaching "real" seminary to train them in the US, but there are some very credible institutions in Latin America and Europe. Most of the Americans, unfortunately, are so dumb they couldn't learn the foreign languages necessary to attend.
Another impediment for all of them, even the foreign nationals, is that they're throughly brainwashed, and probably no rector of a seminary outside the US would accept them for retraining without serious conditions.
The third difficulty is that so many of them have been "ordained" by "One-Hand Dan," so their orders are suspect, since he has refused to undergo conditional re-ordination and re-consecration.
There may be a few who could make it in one of the Latin American or European seminaries, but the problem is that the re-training and re-programming would take years and thousands of dollars. And after that, you could never be sure if later they would revert to the wicked ways of Tradistan and the cult-masters.
SO WHAT'S TO BE DONE?
Well, we think that after SGG falls, the laity should form an association to evaluate the younger clerics for assignment new chapels in need of priests and willing to underwrite their retraining. (Dannie and Checkie must be considered burnt toast, as well as Uneven-Steven McFaker, "Mr. Independent Study.")
Before consideration, each must take an oath before the Blessed Sacrament to abjure Dannie, Big, Don, Checkie, and any priest who supports the Terrible Trio. Then they should be subjected to an academic and psychological evaluation.
The few who manage to survive the scrutiny, should be sent to agreeing Latin American or European seminaries for remediation, after they have been given lessons in the target languages (paid for by the lay body).
When (if) they return, they will be assigned supervisors and given probationary contracts (with behavioral rules) for specific chapels. After 10 years of close supervision, they may be allowed to work without close scrutiny.
If they are godly men couldn't they simply serve as mass priests without all the retraining? I don't recall that the apostles held divinity degrees.
ReplyDeleteYes, the few who have not been entirely ruined by the cult masters could just offer Mass and perform baptisms. We would, however, advise they not be allowed to hear confessions until they've been thoroughly deprogrammed and given a real course in moral theology. They should not be allowed to hear confessions until they can demonstrate their knowledge and pledge not to invent sins.
DeleteSorry, but I'd NEVER go to a Mass said by a "Mass priest". He's either a priest or he isn't. No wishy-washy, no gray areas. If they were truly 'godly' wouldn't they themselves wish to be thoroughly trained?
ReplyDeleteI know that the Cure of Ars struggled but at least he went through the program. These priests need to know & realize that their training was sub-standard & inadequate. Right now they believe that they're OK, They need a reality check.
Only the laity can give these sad-sacks the reality check they need. The first thing is to shut down the cult's chapels by withdrawing all funding, and then run the cult masters out of town. After that, maybe, just maybe, these young "priests" who possess no real-world, marketable skills and have a long way to go in life, may wake up, convert, and get the act together so that they're fit to serve Catholics.
DeleteAs for the Curé, remember that the program he went through was the real thing, not the Ding-Dong School that passes for a seminary nowadays. Today we have zeroes going through a make-believe program under make-believe professors.
I believe the term is actually simplex priest. Good luck with trying to retrain any poorly trained inadequately formed priests. Completing a course of study however poorly feeds the ego like nothing else on this earth. A past acquaintance of mine boasted that she had a post graduate degree in hairdressing! Her blond curls were well very tended to I might add.
ReplyDeleteI would imagine that they would balk at retraining. Then they would find a congregation somewhere and attempt to make a go of it alone. Many are desperate for priests that any chapel will do for a desperate priest.
At least your acquaintance was competent in her chosen vocation. If she were like the Tradistani clerics, (1) a state cosmetology board would never issue her a license, and (2) she'd starve for lack of clientele.
DeleteIn Tradistan, they just declare themselves competent and set up shop. No exams. No interviews. No internships.
A pity the same laity who can recognize a bungled hair-do or a botched manicure can't see the ineptitude of their priests -- even when it's fully exposed on websites. That malformed idiot in Michigan who skipped the consecration is still there!